The Homemade Fish Balls My Dad's Made 100,000 Times
Why this recipe
Most homemade fish balls recipes online are tested only a handful of times. My dad used to make this dish multiple times a day, every day, for 60+ years and can make this in his sleep.
I know you'll love it as much as our community does! This recipe has over 286.5K views, 6.1K likes on YouTube.
This fish ball recipe was originally part of our longer series on doing Hot Pot at Home, and I felt like it deserved its own blog post, so here we are.
If you're new to fish balls, this is an extremely popular type of recipe with a ton of different names and variations throughout Asia and parts of Europe.
The foundation of this recipe is essentially creating a great fish paste. From there, usually, you'll find these rolled up into balls, which you can deep fry and lather in sauce, or boil them in soups or hot pots. Instead of rolling them into balls, you can also flatten them into patties and pan-fry them, which my dad does quite often.
Most Asian grocery stores sell pre-made fishballs, but this is a great way to customize your own healthy version at home.
Ingredients
Instructions
Cut, mince, flatten fish
We'll start by finely mincing our tilapia (2 oz). Beat it down with the blunt edge of our knife to flatten it. Repeat this 1-2 more times to tenderize the fish. We want this to be as tender and paste-like as possible.
The actual amount and type of fish are up to you! My dad just used tilapia because it was readily available at the time.
If you have a food processor, feel free to use it!
Cut, mince, flatten shrimp
Just like our fish, we'll finely mince our shrimp (0.20 oz).
Beat it down with the blunt edge of our knife to flatten it. Repeat this 1-2 more times to tenderize the shrimp. We want this to be as tender and paste-like as possible.
As with the fish, the actual amount and type of shrimp are up to you! You can also just make this with shrimp, or skip the shrimp entirely.
Mix fish & shrimp
With the blunt side of our knife, spatula, paddle, etc, we'll mix the tilapia and shrimp together, and flatten it. Make sure to do this thoroughly.
Chop greens, ginger, orange peel
We'll finely chop some cilantro (4 piece), green onion (4 piece).
We'll also be mincing about 1 square inch of a rehydrated dried orange peel, and 3-4 slices of ginger.
Create flavors
Mix salt (1 tsp), sugar (1 tsp), white pepper (0.50 tsp), chicken bouillon (1 tsp), egg, cornstarch (3 tbsp), and water (5 tbsp) in a bowl.
Mix everything together, add oils
Add the fish paste and greens to the bowl, and mix thoroughly for 2-3 minutes.
Add sesame oil (1 tsp), olive oil (1 tsp), mix for another 30-60 seconds.
Slam the fish paste
This is a traditional technique - we'll take clumps of fish paste and slam it down on the bowl.
This helps increase the pliability of the fish paste.
Refrigerate & cook
Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes
When it comes time to eat, we have a bunch of options:
- Hot pot style: Scoop up a ball of fish paste with a spoon, and then dunk it in the hot pot. It will be ready to eat in a little under a minute - soft, chewy, tender goodness and all.
- Deep fry: Heat up a high smoke point oil (like corn oil) and deep fry the fish balls for ~1 minute at 175C, 350F. Dip in your favorite sauce
- Sauté: Flatten the fish balls into little patties, and pan-fry each side for 2-3 minutes.
Pairs well with
View all →Made with love ❤️
We started Made With Lau to celebrate Cantonese culture and honor the legacy of our wonderful parents, Jenny and Chung Sun Lau.
Our hope is that these recipes and stories help you spread the joy, love, and nostalgia that I felt growing up.
